Curable, or thermosettable, coating compositions are widely used in the coatings art, particularly for topcoats in the automotive and industrial coatings industry. Color-plus-clear composite coatings are particularly useful as topcoats for which exceptional gloss, depth of color, distinctness of image, or special metallic effects are desired. The automotive industry has made extensive use of these coatings for automotive body panels.
Single-layer topcoats and the clearcoats of color-plus-clear composite coatings, however, require an extremely high degree of clarity and gloss to achieve the desired visual effect. Such coatings also require a low degree of visual aberrations at the surface of the coating in order to achieve the desired visual effect such as high distinctness of image (DOI). As such, these coatings are especially susceptible to a phenomenon known as environmental etch. Environmental etch manifests itself as spots or marks on or in the finish of the coating that often cannot be rubbed out. It is often difficult to predict the degree of resistance to environmental etch that a high gloss topcoat or color-plus-clear composite coating will exhibit. Many coating compositions known for their durability and/or weatherability when used in exterior paints, such as known high-solids enamels, do not provide the desired level of resistance to environmental etch when used in high gloss coatings such as the clearcoat of a color-plus-clear composite coating. Curable coating compositions based on curable components having carbamate or urea functionality have been proposed have been described in the art to provide etch-resistant coatings, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,356,669; 5,373,069; 5,854,385; and 6,245,855.
Various compositions have been proposed to meet the above requirements for use as the topcoat coating or as the clearcoat of a color-plus-clear composite coating, including polyurethanes, acid-epoxy systems and the like. However, many prior art systems suffer from disadvantages such as coatability problems, marginal compatibility with the pigmented basecoat, solubility problems, and marginal appearance. Moreover, while one-pack compositions are preferred to two-pack compositions (in which the reactive component must be separated before application to prevent premature reaction), very few one-pack coating compositions have been found that provide satisfactory resistance to environmental etch, especially in the demanding environment of automotive coatings.
In addition, it is desirable to provide coatings with a good combination of properties such as durability, hardness, flexibility, resistance to scratching and marring, and chemical resistance. It is also desirable to reduce the amount of solvent required in coating compositions in order to reduce the volatile organic content (VOC), which is better for the environment. Scratch and mar resistance is the ability of a coating to resist damage caused by abrasion of the coating.
In the past, it has been difficult to formulate a coating that combines good etch resistance with scratch and marring resistance while maintaining flexibility and low VOC.
Curable coating compositions utilizing carbamate-functional resins are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,245,855; 6,160,058; 6,165,618; 6,144,444; 6,084,038; 6,080,825; 6,040,062; 5,994,479; 5,888,655; 5,872,195; 5,866,259; 5,854,385; 5,852,136; 5,827,930; 5,792,810; 5,777,048; 5,770,650; 5,766,769; 5,760,127; 5,756,213; 5,744,550; 5,726,274; 5,726,246; 5,726,244; 5,723,552; 5,693,724; 5,693,723; 5,659,003; 5,639,828; 5,532,061; 5,512,639; 5,508,379; 5,474,811; 5,451,656; 5,373,069; 5,356,669; 5,336,566; and 5,300,328 each of which is incorporated herein by reference, and U.S. application Ser. No. 08/719,670, filed Sep. 25, 1996 (EP832950), now abandoned, 08/166,277, filed Dec. 13, 1993, now abandoned, 08/339,999, filed Nov. 15, 1994, now abandoned 09/211,598, filed Dec. 14, 1998 (WO0036028), now abandoned, 07/965,509, filed Oct. 23, 1992 (CA2108990), now abandoned, and 08/540,276, filed Oct. 6, 1995, now abandoned, and 08/698,525 filed Oct. 6, 1995 (CA2187222), now U.S. Pat. No. 6,498,266 each of which is incorporated herein by reference. These coating compositions can provide significant etch advantages over other coating compositions, such as hydroxy-functional acrylic/melamine coating compositions. It may often be desirable, however, to provide still further improvements in the above-described coating properties.
In addition to etch resistance, mar resistance is a desired property for a coating. Mar resistance is the ability of a coating to resist damage caused by abrasion of the coating. Obtaining desired performance for either etch resistance or mar resistance tends to detract from the performance of the other characteristic. Polycaprolactone structures in a polymer can improve scratch and mar resistance in a coating formed from the polymer and decrease the VOC. Increasing the amount of polycaprolactone to improve mar resistance decreases the etch resistance for the coating because of unstable ester links. Substituting for the polycaprolactone can also improve UV durability. Generally, products that have good etch resistance have bad scratch and mar resistance and high VOC, and vice versa. It would be desirable to achieve optimal performance for all properties.